William Lawther, to Give Us His Presidential Address

PRESIDENTS ADDRESS MR. W. E. JONES : It now gives me the greatest possible pleasure, gentlemen, to call upon our President, Sir William Lawther, to give us his presidential address. Sir William Lawther (President) FELLOW MEMBERS, It has become to many a mere form of speech to declare that we live in difficult and tragic times. With the rest of the community we share the common difficulties and tragedies that beset mankind in his endeavours to find a way through those upheavals that mar civilisation. We who belong to this industry have seen tragedy overshadow the British coalfields in the disasters at Knockshinnoch, Creswell and Easington. These major catastrophes, together with another four to five hundred deaths, and the countless thousands of silicosis and pneumoconiosis cases, and the day to day accidents, bring ever before us the terrible price that those who pursue the calling of "Miner" have to pay, in addition to the services they render to their nation. Will those who in moments of anger next grumble about either the quantity or the quality of their coals, remember the cost in human life, suffering and agony it means to the mining community. The miner always 21 pays in blood. Whatever the other problems that will call for your attention as delegates this week, the causes of these appalling losses of life must be faced, in order to eradicate them, if it be possible for human agencies to do so. There have passed from our midst since we last met, two men who have in recent years graced this platform; Sir Arthur Street and the Right Honourable Ernest Bevin, M.P. Sir Arthur Street, as Vice-Chairman of the National Coal Board, endeared himself to all who knew him. No man gave more conscientious service to the tasks he was called upon to undertake in the development of nationalisation than Sir Arthur. He died in harness, doing his duty for the industry. Ernest Bevin, in the roles he occupied, both in the industrial and political side of the Labour Movement, played a tremendous part in shaping and determining the future of this industry. Those of us who were privileged to know him, know of his greatness. He had a vision of the problems that beset us, and helped to lay a foundation for all who worked within the industry, so that never again would poverty and insecurity be our lot. He walked with us in our demonstrations, he ever marched with us towards the fulfilment of our hopes and aspirations. Miners and their families will ever remember this great soul, who was also a great Englishman. The lines an American wrote of Lincoln could with equal truth be said of Ernest Bevin: "Oh, Uncommon Commoner! May your name For ever lead like a living flame Unschooled scholar! How did you learn The wisdom a lifetime may not earn? Unsainted martyr! Higher than saint! You were a man with man's constraint." To the relatives of those who have passed in the service of the industry, and of their fellows, we pay our tribute, and to their loved ones, our sympathy in their loss. When the history of 1951, this year of Festival, comes to be written, then will be revealed a unique event. When the Prime Minister and the Government appealed to you to help your country with an extra three million tons of coal in the early months of the year, we had the usual outcries from the merchants of gloom, mostly outside our ranks, but we had a few insignificant Doubting Thomases inside too, who said that it could not be done. You have given these arch-pessimists the complete answer. YOU DID GET THE EXTRA COAL. Maybe the historian who records that fact will also wonder how it has come to pass that although everyone knows we must have coal, and have it more abundantly, we still lack the manpower to get it. The answer to that problem of manpower must be found, otherwise disaster looms not far ahead. Some of our critics seem to believe that it is an eternal truth that the obligation rests upon mining families to provide the miners the industry needs, whilst they and their offspring should have the white collar jobs. Perhaps it would be as well for these intellectual sharp-shooters to realise a simple fact, namely, that twenty-five years ago, if fifty per cent of miners' Sons went to the pits, the manpower required was provided; whereas today if one hundred per cent went to the pits, it would not solve the problem. 22 And as educational facilities develop, that percentage is certainly going to be considerably lower than one hundred per cent. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the Coal Board and the nation to face up to the grim realities. The cause of the decline in manpower in a free society is due to the fact that the industry does not provide the incentives to attract the men needed. Therefore much more attention will have to be paid to the human agency than ever before. The miner of today has in the main shown and proved that he will respond to decent, humane treatment. Your National Executive Committee has reported to you the changes made in a few short years under the new administration, yet there still remains the need for a continuous hold on the most valuable asset in the industry—manpower. You have before you for discussion the Plan for Coal. The National Coal Board were under an obligation to put forward such a proposal. I am not at this moment arguing whether the Plan is all that we desire, but it is the first attempt that has ever been made in Britain to provide a Plan for this industry. What is going to happen if we are to go back to the planless days, to a similar stage of twenty-five years ago? Remember that era of wickedness, chaos and strife you and your fathers had in an unplanned industry in 1926? You can never forget it. Over the broken homes and derelict areas the mad men ruled. Never again can we, nor will we, go back to that reign of terror; that iron curtain is broken, and we can, if we desire, follow a line of reason. The Report of the National Executive gives full details of a year of real endeavour to deal with the immediate problem of wages to meet the increasing cost of living, Whatever may be your views on this problem of rising costs in the essentials of life, no one will, I feel sure, believe that there is an easy and simple solution. If the solution lay along the lines of forcing wages to meet the increased living costs, then that would be too simple. It must be self-evident to all, that a process of that kind could be carried to the stage where we should see the utter and absolute collapse of the whole economic fabric, and in the ensuing chaos, the destruction of our civilisation. That would be the atomic bomb solution, bringing the knowledge that we had fired it ourselves. It is the duty of those who have charge of the administrative machine of Government to take the essential steps, if it be in their power to keep the living costs down. It is common knowledge that the present rise in the cost of living arises largely from the unsettled state of the world. This Labour Government has had to begin re-arming, because of the fact that whilst we in Britain and our American allies had, after the end of the war, begun the movement towards Peace, Russia began to operate in exactly the opposite direction. No one realises more than does the Trade Unionist that whilst it may be easy for him to find a solution, there are thousands outside the Trade Union sphere, like the disabled and aged, who are helpless. The day has gone by when we can shirk the main issue, namely, that it can be overcome by increased productivity. That is why we have never failed as a Union to place equally as frankly before our members their obligation in the economic sphere. We cannot understand or appreciate the type of mind which eulogises the Stakhanovite in other nations, and sneers at the sloggers in his own pit. We must never reach the stage of ceasing to learn of the 23 achievements of nations that have higher standards of production than ourselves. An individual, a movement, or a nation that reaches the stage where it cannot be taught anything more is going backward, not forward. That is the diehard Tory position; the modern Canutes whose vision has gone—they have only eyes for yesterday, not for tomorrow. It is because we realise the opposite to that aged and dead outlook, that we welcome the steps taken to learn more about the achievements of those English-speaking Trade Unionists over the other side of the Atlantic. It is considered an advanced outlook in certain circles to sneer at the accomplishments of the United States of America. We want to assure our friends in the U.S.A. that they would be wasting time if they were-to spend many moments trying to explain their problems to some of our pseudo-intellectuals. You can have the assurance that the ordinary, average British Trade Unionist has long, long ago given up listening to their vapourings on these and many other questions. Never in our history was there so firm a link, so perfect an understanding and appreciation of the problems that confront us, as exists today between the British and the American Trade Union Movements.

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